Margaret Brouwer

Born: 1940, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Pulse

• Composed: 2003
• Premiere: April 14, 2003 by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, David Wiley conducting
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes (incl. piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, glockenspiel, suspended cymbals, tom-tom, vibraphone, xylophone strings
• CSO Notable Performances: These are the first CSO performances of Pulse.
• Duration: approx. 6 minutes

Margaret Brouwer is celebrated as a leading figure in contemporary American composition, praised for her richly lyrical and emotionally resonant music. Her music has been performed worldwide, and recent premieres and performances include Voice of the Lake, an 80-minute eco-oratorio, Through the Haze (four percussionists), All Lines are Still Busy (solo violin), The Lake (tenor and piano), Daniel and Snakeman filmed with puppet performers, and The Art of Sailing at Dawn previewed by JoAnn Falletta with the CIM Orchestra. 

Recent notable commissions include Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, commissioned by the International Clarinet Association with a co-commissioners’ consortium, Justice March (CityMusic Cleveland), Fear, Hiding, Play (the American Wild Ensemble), Parallel Isolations (Orli Shaham and the Pacific Symphony’s Café Ludwig Chamber Players) and Disappearing Act (Composers Conference 80th Anniversary).

Her dedication to musical innovation has garnered her numerous awards and accolades, including the Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer Commissioning/USA award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Ohio Council for the Arts Individual Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation and John S. Knight Foundation. 

The Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center established a Margaret Brouwer Collection, which houses invaluable resources for scholars and performers. 

Recordings of Brouwer’s music can be found on the Naxos, New World, CRI, Crystal, Centaur, and Opus One labels. In 2024, Marin Alsop and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded an album featuring five of Brouwer’s orchestral works for release by Naxos. 

Pulse was commissioned by David Wiley and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra in honor of the RSO’s 50th anniversary and was supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Rhythmic pulses of differing values exist over a steady grand pulse that is the same for all. The spirit motive emerges; mysterious, rustling and whispery, flowing through with melody — and in the end becomes infused and strengthened by connections of differing values and pulses.

In 2013, conductor Caroline Beatty at Texas State University commissioned an arrangement of Pulse for Wind Symphony.

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